


patching up

by SerpentineJ



Category: Lupin III
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 18:49:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11042133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerpentineJ/pseuds/SerpentineJ
Summary: set after red jacket lupin ep 112 (aka the one where goemon got beat up and made me fall in love with him.) someone needs to fix him up, right?





	patching up

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: i hate this episode so much

Goemon groans.

He sinks into the warm water. It stings so badly, fresh welts across his chest and back oozing blood still and bruises blossoming vividly against his pale skin absolutely everywhere, but he bears on, determined to treat them properly. He grits his teeth involuntarily, then yelps in pain when he remembers that one of his molars has been brutalized.

"Don't move." A low voice behind him. Jigen. A calloused hand rests lightly on his sore shoulder, as though to reassure him of his presence. The other begins to swipe a soft, wet washcloth against the worst of the wounds on his back. He makes a noise of pain.

"Sorry." Jigen murmurs, none of his characteristic gruffness about him. The smile and joking attitude from earlier, when he had tried to lift the mood, walking back to base from that godforsaken castle, has all but slipped completely from his face. Goemon can tell he's surveying the damage, running his eyes across Goemon's body, but can't imagine what expression he has on his face.

"It's fine." Goemon gets out. "Jigen."

Jigen exhales. He rubs his thumb in small circles on Goemon's shoulder, on a spot that's aching but mostly undamaged. 

"You're on bed rest for the next week, at least." Jigen mutters. "Probably two weeks. No jobs. We have plenty of money from the last heist."

Goemon pinches his lips. His chin drops slightly towards his chest in defeat. He feels useless, though he knows it's not his fault.

"It's not your fault." Jigen echoes his mind, shifting behind him to dunk the washcloth into the water and wring the blood from it, returning it to Goemon's back. "You... you did well, Goemon. I don't know how you held on that long, you know."

Goemon flushes- whether from the direct praise or the hot water, he doesn't think about.

"I was only doing what any friend would." He murmurs, mind exhausted. Jigen can sense that he's slowly nodding off by the tiny twitches in his frame, and hastens his cleaning. "I would rather die than betray my friends."

Jigen chuckles.

"You're an idiot sometimes." He says, but he's smiling, and he lets his hand drag up to Goemon's neck, his ear, to trace around the tender shell, coming around to cup his jaw. "If you were more selfish I wouldn't have to worry as much."

His finger comes to rest at the corner of Goemon's mouth, so Goemon knows Jigen can feel the slight quirk of his lips under his skin.

"I knew Lupin would figure something out." He replies, letting the feeling of finally relaxing wash over him in accompaniment to the sharp pain of his various injuries. "Doesn't he always."

Jigen snorts.

"It's just like you, to put your life in that idiot's hands." He finishes cleaning Goemon's back and drags the stool he's been sitting on around the bath, to his front. 

Goemon would shrug, but it would hurt too much. Instead, he focuses on not looking Jigen directly in the eyes while the other man wipes down his chest and abdomen, deftly cleaning away dried blood and grime. The water is cloudy. He reminds himself to go back to the hot spring soon, but with someone to accompany him this time.

Maybe he'll ask Jigen.

That flush rises higher on his face.

"Hey, are you alright?" Jigen leans down to peer up at his face, hands pausing. "Is the water too hot? You look kinda red."

"I-I'm fine." He turns his head away. Time to change the subject. "Do you know of a dentist in the area who could take a look at this tooth?"

Jigen scoffs.

"Dentist." He mutters, resuming his work. "Probably. Ask Lupin. You're not eating any more hard foods for the next few weeks, either."

Goemon grimaces at the thought of a whole month of only rice and soup, but squashes the feeling. It's for the best. Jigen pours a bucket of clean water over him and quickly washes his hair, burying his fingers in soapy suds and long, dark strands and rinsing it out again.

"Done." Jigen announces after a minute, leaning back to observe his handiwork. Goemon shifts, and tries to get up, but stumbles before he can even get to his knees- luckily, Jigen's hands under his arms catch him, and the other man lets him lean on him on shaky legs as he ties a towel around his waist and tries to get out of the tub.

"Oi!" Jigen exclaims when Goemon almost slips in the tub. "Stop that, you're going to break your neck. Here." He slides one arm under Goemon's and the other around his knees, and completely disregarding the water dripping from the other man's body and onto his clothes, pulls Goemon into his arms and marches towards the door.

"You're heavy." His voice sounds strained. Goemon chuckles tiredly.

Jigen lowers Goemon onto the bed of the bedroom down the hall gently and instructs him to roll onto his stomach. He does, with a wince of pain. Jigen tosses his wet jacket, whose sleeves had been rolled up, onto a nearby chair and re-tucks his shirt sleeves above his elbows, pulling medicine and supplies out of the nightstand.

"It'll sting a bit." He warns. Goemon tenses when a warm hand smooths itself onto his back, against one of the places the whip hadn't reached, and flinches when Jigen begins to apply the medicine.  
It takes a while, it seems. Goemon's hands end up balled in the sheets, white knuckled and tense, fingers trembling, but Jigen's constant press and release becomes rhythmic after a while, and he knows when to expect the pain. The entire action is overlaid with a sense of... something like tenderness, in the way Jigen's fingertips will sometimes ghost over his skin or smooth against him.

"Alright." Jigen says, finally, gruffly. "Sit up."

He helps Goemon sit up and quickly treats the wounds on his front and arms. Long strips of cloth bandage are wrapped around his torso and chest and shoulders, unfamiliar-feeling, slightly rough against his skin, but he gets used to them after a few moments. He doesn't want to move, anyways.

"Want some water?" Jigen asks, putting the medical supplies away. There's nothing to be done with the bruises and joint swelling besides icing. Goemon had eaten as soon as they had gotten back to the base- that miso soup he loved so much he kept a container of stock in every safe house they had.

"Okay." Goemon murmurs, eyelids fluttering shut. Jigen helps him lay down again. Before he gets up, Goemon grabs his wrist, long, pale fingers wrapping around tanned skin.

"Huh?" Jigen looks back. "Want something else?"

Goemon opens his eyes again and looks up at him.

"Thank you." He says hoarsely. There's a cut on his face, and Jigen makes a mental note to ask Lupin where the adhesive bandages are. He smiles.

"Get some rest." Jigen replies, letting his fingertips brush Goemon's pulse point on the inside of the hand holding his wrist before pulling away. "I'll get you some ice and some water."

When he closes the door, Goemon exhales.

His skin hurts. His insides hurt. His arms and legs feel like they're on fire.

And yet, when he thinks about Lupin and Jigen, safe in the next room, and even Fujiko and Zenigata, far away yet irrevocably connected- the friends for whom he would die in an instant rather than breathe a word of betrayal- it all seems worth it, somehow. Every scrape and bruise and ugly mark on him feels like a mark of success- he's stopped it from happening to them. 

Jigen returns.

"Sit up." He instructs, hands on Goemon as gentle as always. Someone with so dedicated a trigger finger has immense control over his hands. He helps Goemon slowly drink a glass of water, sets ice packs on the joints on his extremities, and pulls a duvet up over him. The castle gets cold.

"Thank you." Goemon repeats. The words feel unnatural on his lips.

Jigen scoffs.

"You're the one who's injured. Don't thank me." He half-smiles and reaches a hand out to stroke along Goemon's cheek, through his drying hair. "Just don't pull any stupid shit like that again, you hear?"

Goemon chuckles.

"I can't make any promises." He replies, and they both know that neither of them can make any promises. Part of the territory is knowing that you, or your friends, or your loved ones, could die tomorrow.

All he can do, Goemon thinks, is trust his companions with his life.

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: im, anrgy
> 
> talk jigoe to me: [tumblr,](http://kimishitaatsushi.tumblr.com) [twitter](https://twitter.com/serpentinej)


End file.
